Washington State Football: 5 reasons why college football needs Mike Leach

At a time when sports are at an all-time peak of phony coaches, Washington State football’s Mike Leach is what the college football world needs.

Mike Leach is known for his poor dress, strange diatribes and his confused sideline stare. As weird as Leach seems, he is exactly what college football needs. Mike Leach grew up in Cody, Wyo., which is a town of 9,500 as of the last census. He references it in interviews and stares off longingly as he mentions The Stars and Stripes Drive-In theatre.

But Leach is more than just off-hand comments. Here are five reasons why college football needs Washington State football coach Mike Leach, AKA the self-proclaimed pirate, heading into a Week 2 matchup against the Boise State Broncos.

5. College football already lost Spurrier and Miles

With quirky quote machines like Steve Spurrier retired and Les Miles in and out of the announcer’s booth, college football needs a quirky coach that can make up for the loss of two legends. Coach Leach has fat-shamed his players’ choice in dates, given dating advice to fans and even appeared on Friday Night Lights (above).

Without Spurrier and his “Can’t spell Citrus without UT” one liners or Les Miles eating grass, what do we have as college football people? Without the quirks, we’re left to the bland plain, dry chicken taste of an NFL-type stale sound bite.

4. Mike Leach’s honesty

If anything, Mike Leach is honest. He’s himself in all of his weird glory. He referred to his Cougars as a JUCO softball team. His endless rambling brings out so many truths you’d never know about any other coach, stuff like how many different ways he walks to work, whether his neighbors are nice, that he’s learning the Spanish language.

As a matter of fact, the entire Seattle Times article by Larry Stone titled “The Bishop and The Pirate” is worth a full read, mainly for David Shaw over anyone else. Shaw seems to find Mr. Leach extremely humorous but obviously thinks of him as a quirky neighbor like Kramer from Seinfeld. Leach may bust in Shaw’s door and just eat a bite of an apple and put the rest back.

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But with Leach you’re getting a flat honesty, not the coach-speak so many other coaches throw out there. You’re not getting pre-determined one-liners about good practice, or scoring more points. You’re getting exactly what he’s thinking.

In Larry Stone’s article from the Seattle Times, Leach said, “Like a lot of us, I grew up with my parents telling me, ‘Why can’t you be more like a guy like Chris Petersen?’”

This is part charming and part funny, but all honest. Petersen is “normal” and clean cut, Leach is messy and socially awkward. If his team is playing well, you’ll know. If they’re playing poorly, you’re sure to know. You can always tell when Leach has had a good game because his more quippy than agitatedly insulting.

3. Mike Leach is our intellectual savior

Leach’s former protege Kliff Kingsburry could be defined as suave, PJ Fleck, the new name in the Big Ten, could be defined as energetic, James Franklin at Penn State a shark and Alabama’s Nick Saban and Washington’s Chris Petersen stately.

Mike Leach isn’t your typical former great athlete-turned-coach or CEO-like fast-talker that sells his program on TV. He’s not going to woo fans with his form fitting polos like Larry Fedora, or his Under Armour 1/4 zip-ups like Kingsbury.

What you get from Mike Leach is our intellectual savior. He’s not quite as sophisticated as Lloyd Carr or Joe Paterno, he’s Judd Apatow’s pick for a head ball coach — frumpy but lovable.

Why is Leach the coach of the nerds? First and foremost, he didn’t even play college football. He has an obsession with 18th century pirates. He has a Juris Doctorate from Pepperdine. He probably likes The Solid Verbal but wouldn’t tell anyone. His idea of killing time trapped in the car with Petersen was learning Spanish on his phone, or staring out the window. He invented “6” which is a play every football fan should know and every coach should run.

2. Mike Leach coaches the underdog

In a sport and especially at the college level, where we claim we like underdogs, Mike Leach is the underdog coach.

When he was at Texas Tech, he was taking over the lowly Red Raiders who hadn’t won double-digit games since 1976. He had to compete for players with powers like Oklahoma, Texas and Texas A&M and rising stars like Baylor and TCU.

After his controversial firing from Tech, he took over the Washington State Cougars. WSU had more recent success than Tech winning 10-plus games in 2001-2003, but had fallen off drastically before Leach won nine and eight games the last two seasons, respectively. He’s competing in the Pac-12 for talent against Washington, Oregon, Oregon State, UCLA and USC.

Not to mention Petersen’s old squad Boise State that’s been poaching kids from California for years.

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We love a good underdog story and Mike Leach has won more games per season than Bill Doba or Paul Wulff could manage in Pullman. He’s our Matt Saracen (Friday Night Lights quarterback portrayed by Zach Gilford).

As a culture, we’ve grown to relate to the less athletic intellectual as our hero. “Big Bang Theory” is a top rated comedy, Hank Moody won us over on “Californication” and people read Chuck Klosterman books. Collecting vinyl and being odd are in for today’s culture. Leach likes his hipster coffee shops for people watching, but he’s just as watchable as anyone else.

1. Mike Leach is now on Twitter

Mike Leach’s Twitter has been around since 2011, but now he’s finally using it more and it’s amazing. He’s talking about his favorite movies, re-tweeting historical pictures, and even liking my Tweets which was flattering (can’t die happy until we have IKEA pizza together and talk football in the fake kitchens they have set up).

In a Leach-ian move he’s even using the social media giant to fight for his lost wages from Texas Tech, who fired him amidst controversy in December of 2010. Leach is fighting Texas’ sovereign immunity law that means they could cheat him out of his Texas Tech money that is still owed.

But he’s not just looking to help himself. Leach and the Cougs are working to raise resources for flood relief in Houston. Leach is the kind of coach that comes across gruff but at least he’s funny. He would be a great neighbor, like a disgruntled Wilson from Home Improvement. You would learn life’s lessons but he also might tell you to turn your music down unless you’re using his playlist.

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Does Mike Leach have Spotify? If so, what’s he listening to right now? Let’s just embrace his love for Twitter while it lasts before he’s too busy playing the new Carmen Sandiego app.